Marching band is already an alternative to PE -- when I was a kid I chose an instrument in 6th grade and learned it to get out of PE in high school AThletics is as well.

Our middle school has a dance option for PE And yes athletics takes athletics PE.

I'm sorry. Texas has not gotten the message yet.

I was more likely to be defended when I tried to breastfeed in public -- I can't even recall a single time someone tried to stop me or shame me, etc. But I got some attaboys. And frankly those were just as offputting. I would have rather been ignored.

This is having your priority straight, IMHO

?? That's just nonsense. They are calling it non-fiction?

How much reference will the instructor be with 40 minutes class time only? I see a lot of issues suing free zoom for the classes. Even when we try it for the meetings, we run into problems -- everyone does not arrive exactly on time. So you lose some of the 40 minutes gtting started, etc.

If the girl is my daughter, I suggest she not wear the necklace anymore at the college as it is sending mixed signals. If the new boyfriend is my son, I suggest he steer clear of this girl still sending mixed signals. His gifts are going to be compared to the ex's gifts and it seems she's still playing games. If the old boyfriend is my son, I suggest he steer clear since she's made it clear she is not interested.

One of my favorite care packages items as a college student was a holiday pair of fun socks my mom sent me. I wore those to death until I eventually had to get rid of them in my 20s

Ugh. Sounds like its a good idea to price out meal plan and even if living on campus give the kid cash if they can avoid spending it all. That's ridiculous to charge meal plans MORE than you do the walk ins! I never ate all the meals I could when living on campus

In one of our offices -- all the ADHD is done by one doctor in the office. None of the others. Since my son wants a male doctor for his physicals he actually has two regular doctors now.

I just eat my garbanzo beans with skins -- didn't know this was a thing. But-- Can you sit down while you pick the skins off?

This sounds very exciting. And yes I'd love proven recipes with some history -- ways to use things I've seen on the shelves but never really touched.

Huh. This sounds like my son (including the touch part) -- we never tried team sports because he does so terrible in a team environment

Evidently fires very similar happened in 2018! https://wapo.st/3QQI5wW "A Maui wildfire nearly took Lahaina in 2018; Officials were warned of a repeat." KAUA’ULA VALLEY, Hawaii — Burning homes have a specific kind of plastic smell, one Samantha and David Dizon know too well. So when it wafted through their windows on Aug. 8, they froze. Running outside, they saw the plumes of smoke coming from Lahaina and heard propane tanks exploding in the distance. They knew what was unfolding, because nearly five years ago, the same thing had happened to them. Around 11 p.m. on Aug. 24, 2018, something ignited in the dry, grassy hills behind their home in the Kaua’ula Valley, a West Maui community uphill from Lahaina. Howling winds from a passing hurricane helped feed that spark, sending what the Dizons called a “wall of fire” toward their unincorporated village, where about 50 Native Hawaiian people live on ancestral (known as Kuleana) land that has been in their families for centuries. They barely got out. In the chaos, David’s mother, Yolanda Dizon, fell, and flames licked her arms and legs. Trying to help his grandmother, David’s teenage son also sustained third-degree burns. Yolanda’s puppy got left in a car, and David heard her yelping as she burned to death. Firefighters showed up but couldn’t handle the terrain. Over the next 24 hours, crews would battle three blazes at the same time. No one died, but if the winds had been stronger that day, officials said, the ultimate toll could have been far worse. Even so, the West Maui fires of 2018 torched 21 houses, 27 cars and more than 2,100 acres, causing $4.3 million in damage and displacing a few dozen people, including the Dizons, who lived in a shelter for a year and a half while they rebuilt. In terms of homes lost, it was the most destructive wildfire in state history — until now. Five years apart, the two disasters eerily parallel one other. Both times, in August, hurricane-fueled winds pounded West Maui. Both times, they helped to ignite what would become multiple fires in overgrown, drought-stricken hills. The first time, the lack of warnings and chaotic evacuations spurred residents to question their leaders’ response, preparation and transparency. The second time, some of the same problems repeated themselves. A heated town hall on Aug. 29, 2018 — recorded on Facebook — captures the raw emotions five years ago. For three hours, angry and emotional residents peppered Mayor Alan Arakawa and other state and county officials with questions: Why didn’t Maui Electric shut off the power given the high winds and their equipment having caused other fires? Why didn’t emergency staff sound their all-hazard sirens? Why did firefighters lose water? Why was there not an evacuation plan? Why did their cellphones not get alerts? Why, after the fire, did the county not quickly provide the displaced with assistance, instead forcing their community to fill the gap? Now, in the aftermath of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, people in the Lahaina area are again asking the same questions, further challenging recent statements made by county and state officials that “nobody saw this coming,” that “this has never happened before.” “We were begging to be taken seriously, but our voices weren’t being heard,” Samantha Dizon said. “2018 should have been a wake-up call. But nothing was done here.” Despite promising they would take action, Maui County leaders did not make wildfires a priority after 2018, a Washington Post investigation has found, even though their hazard plan stated that “West Maui has experienced more wildfires than any other community planning area over the last 20 years.” The Post investigation — a review of hundreds of pages of county documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, including current and former county and state employees — found that Maui Emergency Management Agency officials regularly warned county leaders that their staffing and evacuation infrastructure was inadequate to respond to a major disaster. However, even with a budget boost, the county only increased agency staffing from seven to nine employees between fiscal years 2020 and 2021. The agency’s administrator, Herman Andaya, also did not act on recommendations by residents and others that the county broaden its outdoor warning sirens to include wildfires. At county meetings, he called the system a “last resort.” Emergency officials again did not activate those sirens on Aug. 8 to alert Lahaina residents of the approaching fire, a decision Andaya repeatedly defended before he resigned last week. The agency also never published its internal after-action report on the 2018 fires, which should have included findings on what went wrong and recommendations for improvements, according to a former county official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the matter. In addition, the county did not broadly or swiftly act on calls by residents, as well as reports commissioned by the community, to improve fire safety. At least two called for homeowners and private landowners to remove dangerous vegetation on their properties and create defensible spaces and fire breaks. ...

You know I did not mean to start a pile on the youtuber. (or to derail the conversation) This was supposed to be about the Maui fires and I thought I was helping to show what the situation on the ground was.

When the second plane hit I knew we were at war. I lived in Puget Sound Washington and worked for Boeing (and there was a lot of concern after 9/11 if people would ever be comfortable flying again) and was waking up to a radio show. I vaguely recall it was a slow news day and then there were reports of a plane and the first plane hit and Kirby Wilbur was talking about the last time a plane hit a tall building in NYC (The Empire States Building) etc... but it was a clear day this day. And then the second plane hit and I realized it was intuitional and we were at war and rushed out to my TV to record. I remember not believing a online friend who said they had a relative on one of the planes that was calling out trying to get help. And I scoffed that hijackers would not allow that - -except it turns out the hijackers would not care. And the quiet skies and wondering where else would be hit. The radio at first thought the plane around the Pentagon was a commuter plane not a jet -- except it was a jet as well. There was a lot of confusion. And when the second tower fell, thinking how sad it would be to see one tower up where two used to be. Except of course the first tower ended up collapsing as well.

You don't need to go to school. Just intentional practice would help! Sometimes you can find a Calligraphy class at Hobby Lobby/Michaels/et al if you wanted to learn a new kind of lettering

My son is going to have to figure out what to say because he is NOT going straight to college.

I was in 7th and had been pulled from PE to watch the Challenger launch on TV as a special privilege. We ended staying out of class the rest of the day.

They have a whole program for it in Washington. My friend who homeschooled her kids all the way through relied on it. She got them enough math to pass the Community College exams, then they finished out school there. The oldest got a culinary degree and was a sous chef for a while. She now teaches as a Cooking teacher in a high school and owns a restaurant with her husband. The youngest got a phlebotomist certificate. I don't know what she's doing now. The youngest would be about 28 now -- so this was a while ago. Even when I was in school, some of the seniors (esp) went off to Blinn College to take classes. My husband went off to University of Washington instead of 8th grade and spent his entire "high school" going to college instead. When he was getting his Masters (after we met) at Texas State University, he was a TA for a while and there were a LOT of students in the remedial classes because they could not pass the exam to take courses that got diploma credit without backing up and learning math they had not managed to learn in HS.

My ADHD son HATES to write What has worked the best has surprisingly been the Rocketbook Reusable Planner. He does not take pictures of many of the pages -- but can if need be. Mostly he keeps homework (minimal) in it. Or refs to check online. And then erases it to reuse every other weekend or so. Unlike most planners we've tried over the years 1) This one gets used a little and 2) He has not lost the planner OR the pen

A family youtuber I watch was in Maui when everything went down and they tend to record their daily activities for their channel -- so they put up a video of the last couple of days. And the wind is REALLY Blowing -- I can easily see that affecting the fighting of the fire when I see how it is affecting them.

OOh We get Peach Pineapple Salsa from Safeway/Randall's to use in one of the casseroles we make

A friend of mine had to do this. She had 4 small children when their garage caught on fire and she was home alone. It was fully engulfed when she noticed and the house was close by. She got the youngest two out, ran back in to get the older two out. Was going to run back in to get her car keys but the neighbors stopped her.